The Big Story: The Great Medicaid Hospital Scam
“Cue the howls from the hospital lobby. Since when does an industry protest a tax cut for itself?”
White Coats and Scrubs: Willing Voices to Share Your Community Impact Story”
3-minute read
A message isn’t a message until it’s delivered.
Hospitals that provide extraordinary community benefits – but don’t tell the story of that service – are like trees falling in a forest with no one around to hear it.
And the sound of that silence is politically expensive today.
A couple of weeks ago we wrote that the public isn’t seeing the positive community impact hospitals and health systems have in their communities. There’s a gap between what the public thinks provider organizations should be doing and what they think providers are doing.
Hospitals are doing the work. They are providing the services. The good news is that those services benefit both the community and the hospital. Or at least, could benefit the hospital. Things like training the next generation of healthcare workers, helping with transportation and access, offering financial assistance…these are all obviously good practices that help patients.
They also happen to be powerful political messages that resonate with the public. Those specific items drive support for non-profit hospitals’ tax-exempt status. Even if you’re not a non-profit, there’s still a reputational and political benefit to be had in highlighting that community impact work.
Public political positioning may feel uncomfortable, messy, distasteful even. Something best left to associations while your GR team focuses on private advocacy. But here we are, in a bizarre political moment where institutions of all types are under attack. And where hospitals are accused of “feasting” on the government, using a “government-sanctioned racket” and “scheme” to “grab more…money” and enjoy a “free lunch.” (And that’s just the first two paragraphs of the WSJ editorial!)
The challenge is to tell a better, singular story about all the things you are doing – highlighting aspects that resonate with the audience. It feels counterintuitive, but it isn’t: Potential changes to Medicaid are arguably the most pressing issue facing provider organizations today. You should be talking about the massive risk those cuts pose – a majority of the public is opposed to cuts, and your voice matters in today’s debate.
At the same time, to move the needle longer-term and build support for provider organizations (including nonprofits’ tax-exempt status), the story should expand beyond the policy issues of today. It should be a comprehensive story about all the ways your organization contributes: financial assistance, transportation to appointments, community clinics, training doctors. That will build the ongoing support needed to push back against…you got it, negative changes to Medicaid or other harmful policies that might show up in the future.
Willing Ambassadors
If only hospitals could find a group of people who are mission-driven, deeply involved in the work and largely trusted by the public. What a powerful group of spokespeople that would be to tell the story and help close the perception gap.
Getting your workforce more involved in both driving change and serving as external advocates is low-hanging fruit. A good messenger needs credibility, knowledge, experience and nuanced insight. Healthcare workers have all those things in spades.
And they want to help. Want proof? In a recent healthcare workforce survey by our Market Research & Insights team, just over half agreed that “My organization involves me and my colleagues in finding productive ways to respond to the major challenges facing healthcare?” But nearly two-thirds agreed that they, as individuals, “can drive positive change related to major challenges facing healthcare.”
We also asked what energizes them the most as healthcare workers. The answers from physicians, nurses and staff almost universally centered on caring for patients, improving lives and the mission of care.
Bottom line: Your team knows it can contribute, but fewer say they are given the opportunity to do so. And that’s a miss.
Your workforce understands that community benefit and impact may be measured – but it should be defined by lives improved. Not how many lives, necessarily, although that’s part of it. But one by one, with a patient experiencing a positive change. An appointment not missed because of help with transportation. Kids vaccinated in a pop-up community clinic. And, yes, lowered stress because of financial assistance received. Those outcomes all go right to the heart of the mission that you and your team share.
Start here
Equip and activate your team to be vocal partners in communicating that impact. Do that by:
- Making sure they Too often, employees themselves aren’t familiar with everything an organization is doing beyond its four walls. Find out where those gaps are and then undertake internal comms to close them.
- Asking for their solutions. Your workforce delivers and manages care. They understand what works, what doesn’t and what patients are saying. Ask them about the challenges they see every day. Then ask what they would do to solve them.
- Giving them resources. After hearing their solutions, don’t just send them off to do it. Don’t assume that the people bringing you the ideas are the right people for the job – or even want to do the work. Figure out the necessary resources – whether staff time, funding, outside expertise.
- Letting them be stars. Update your social media guidelines as needed, then let your clinical team know that they have a role to play on those channels. Let them speak up about the health issues that matter to them.
Contributors: David Jarrard, David Shifrin, Emme Nelson Baxter, Tim Stewart
Image credit: Shannon Threadgill
